Fallout

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Another cold front this past weekend caused another fallout of spring migrants:  more warblers (Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Blackburnian, Nashville, Tennessee, American Redstart--and FOY Canada); more vireos (Philadelphia, Red-eyed, FOY Warbling), more orioles and grosbeaks and tanagers (in far fewer numbers than last week, but still arriving). The flycatchers and their relatives were here to confuse and delight me: Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Eastern Phoebes, Eastern Wood-Pewees, and Eastern Kingbirds started to trickle in and empidonax flycatchers in their maddening (because all so similar) variations.  (Luckily, some of the empids were calling, identifying themselves as an Acadian Flycatcher and a Least.  A Yellow-bellied Flycatcher had a definitive yellow throat, though its belly was not as yellow as the Acadian's.) Chimney Swifts were passing through and swooping over the river,  as were a variety of swallows.  A few thrushes feasted on berries of fiddlewood and anacua trees.

It was a good weekend for me to sit in our bird garden with binoculars, camera, and I-phone.  It wasn't so good for our little screech-owls, however.  Their fallout was of a distinctly different kind.


Yesterday I was walking up the driveway when I happened to notice a little face looking out of the owl house. It was smaller than the adult face I usually see peering at me.  Before I could even stop or slow my gait, the little owl flew or fell out of the box, landing about 10 feet away.  It could not fly well at all, and I wonder if it isn't too early for it to be out.  The same birds that are so upset when the adult owls fly out of the box were just as upset with this baby.  Mockingbirds, Hooded Orioles, Curve-billed Thrashers immediately started fussing. Green Jays and Black-crested Titmice added their calls to the cacophony.

The owl hopped/flew under an ebony tree,  across the neighbor's drive and then into the yard of the vacant house next door.  Northern Kiskadees were especially upset by that time because their nest is in the ebony tree. It didn't seem to matter that the little guy couldn't come close to  flying up to the top of the tree. The Kiskadees were still fiercely protective.
(Enlarge this photo by clicking on it and you'll be able to find the owl among the grass and oak tree saplings.)

Northern Kiskadee nest in Ebony tree

        I didn't know what to do about the situation.  If I walked toward the owl, it would fly awkwardly away, further out in the open where it would continue to be mobbed.  Finally it found a hiding place among low branches and the roots of a brasilian pepper tree.  I decided the best thing for me to do would be to leave it there and hope things in the yard would settle down if I weren't making them worse.

I've been second-guessing myself about the wisdom of putting a nest box in our  narrow yard where it would be near other nests and next to a driveway where we drive and walk past it several times a day.

Hooded Oriole nest under frond of a Sabal Palm

However, the kiskadees, thrashers, and orioles all built their nests after the owls started nesting in the box in March.  The Hooded Orioles, in fact, have a nest up under the fronds of the Sabal Palm where the parent owls roost when not in the box.  A nearby pine tree holds up some of the palm fronds and makes a little sheltered place for the screech-owls to rest.  The woven pouch of the oriole nest (made from fibers pulled from the palm fronds) is  on the opposite side of the same tree.  For all their fussing at the owls, the orioles chose their own nest location.  There were plenty of palm trees to choose from.

I have not seen the owl since I left it at the base of the tree.  It couldn't fly well, but I believe it could move along branches.  When I looked back up at the entrance hole as I passed by the owl house, I saw another little face peering at me.  I hope it stays in the box a while longer.  And I hope its sibling survives outside the box.

The Eastern Screech-owl in this photograph was being mobbed by several species of birds.  Usually it sits unperturbed despite the ruckus, but here a Curve-billed Thrasher gets its attention by spreading wide its wing and tail feathers in an attempt to look larger and more threatening.  The owl opened its beak and hissed in return, and the encounter was a standoff.   

It's always a dilemma deciding what to do about birds that fall out of nests or injured birds   My son's family found three robins that had fallen out of a nest at their house a few days ago.  The nest had a large hole in it.  They repaired it as best they could and put it back in the tree.  The baby robins were obviously not fledgling age yet.  It is harder to tell if the screech-owl is old enough to fledge.  I usually just move birds to the safest location I can when I find them in trouble.  I don't want to make things worse by interfering. But I want to help if I can.

the little hummer traveled to see grandchildren with us

Two weeks ago I found a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that had apparently fallen into a  flower bed under one of our back windows. Thinking it might be temporarily stunned by a collision with the window,  I left it alone and watched it for awhile.   The flower bed seemed a fairly safe and sheltered place for a short time, but when the wind changed from the north I moved it to another bed and put a nectar feeder on the ground for it.  Eventually I brought it inside to keep it safe from neighborhood cats.

I know keeping a wild bird is illegal, but I have been unsuccessful in a search for a bird rehabber in the area. There's one in Houston (a six-hour drive)  that I may be able to take it to later this week when we go to our daughter's house for a visit.  For now, I'll put the hummer outside when I can watch it and keep it supplied with nectar and fruit flies. This is the first time I've tried to care for a wild bird. I think it's pretty obvious after two weeks that the little guy is not going to be able to fly again.


This is not the kind of fallout I wish for.

Homecomings and Homebuilding

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I was almost right about the Hooded Oriole's return.  He came "home"  just one day later than last year.  Here he is in one of the palm trees in the backyard, not far from where a pair of the birds nested last summer.  Actually several pairs nested last year, as every year, in our palms and those of yards nearby.  Their small beautiful nests are made of long palm fibers, like little golden purses, that are usually nestled under a palm frond. So far this spring I've seen only one male at a time and no females.  It appeared first late in the day at a front yard bath, just as it did last year, and was in the Bottlebrush tree early the next morning.

Below is a photo of a similarly-colored  Altamira Oriole in the Bottlebrush.  Here in Texas, Hooded Orioles are orange like the Altamiras, though I think they are more yellow or gold in other locations.   The two species are sometimes confused by casual observers. Note the difference in the shape of the black on the head--more like a mask on the Altamira Oriole and coming straight down just behind the eye of the Hooded, forming the orange "hood." In addition, the Altamira Oriole has an orange wing patch high on the shoulder and the Hooded does not.

When the male Hooded Orioles arrive home, they seem most interested at first in bathing and eating.  When the females follow in a few days (this is the usual pattern), oriole-watching gets more interesting as the males crisscross the yard and show off from every tree. Home-building quickly follows their homecoming as they pair up and start finding nesting sites.

 My favorite oriole photo from last spring is this one in which a male is spreading his tail almost as if imitating the palm frond on which he's perched (and where his mate will build a nest after his antics successfully get her attention).

Tail-fanning seems to be a popular way of attracting attention in the bird world.  Here's a photo of a Long-billed Thrasher showing off to his mate a few weeks ago.  I had taken a picture of what I thought was just one thrasher in the Bottlebrush tree.  I hadn't even seen the dancer with the fancy tail, but there it was when I reviewed the photo.  I love photos I just shoot randomly that turn out later to be really interesting.

Long-billed Thrashers

Curve-billed Thrasher

We have two species of thrashers that live year-round in the yard,  both virtuoso singers.  Long-billed thrashers are more musical, their phrases a little slower,  but I find the Curve-billed Thrasher's song extremely interesting.  The male that lives in our yard all year began singing in January, very quietly but constantly as though practicing for the "real" full-throated singing that began in February.  I've written about this "whisper song" before.  (I've also written about Buff-bellied Hummingbirds and Altamira Orioles singing so quietly you have to be very close to hear them.) When the thrasher sings his quiet song, he doesn't open his beak much, if at all, but his throat moves. I'll hear a song that sounds as if a singing bird is far away, and then find the persistent singer in a nearby Hackberry tree. His usual song is like the whisper song in quality and phrasing but is very much louder.

Curve-billed Thrashers seem always to be doing something interesting.  

Here one is taking a sun bath on a  sun-warmed stepping stone.

Here one bends low to sip water spraying from a dripper hose.

And here he looks especially distinctive perched on a post.  

Curved-bill thrashers have more rounded markings on their breasts than Long-billed, and of course their color is a more muted brown.  Both have a distinctive long, dark bill,  and orange eyes.  Our yard, a messy one with unraked leaves and brushy unkempt tangles of native shrubs, is a perfect place for them to thrash around in, throwing leaf litter and dirt all around. 

Yesterday I thought perhaps a Brown Thrasher had stopped by our yard.  Once one spent a whole winter with us.  Yesterday's bird appeared redder than the usual dark brown of the very similar Long-billed.   But closer looks showed me the gray face and darker bill of the Long-billed after all,  looking especially bright and reddish in the sun. 

Both pairs of thrashers are beginning nest-building activities,  though neither has settled on a specific location.   I think the Long-billed pair will nest in a Cedar Elm in the front yard and the Curved-billed couple are experimenting by sticking  thorny twigs  in various locations in the back.  Curve-billed Thrashers seem to not need such brushy locations.  They have built in past years in just about every medium sized tree in the yard.  Last year their first nest was in a Yucca and the second in a Brasil.  One year they even built a nest in a Purple Martin house that the martins no longer liked because trees had grown too near it. 

Starlings are already nesting in a cavity in the dead cottonwood.  I don't begrudge these invaders a spot since there are about a half-dozen other cavities for the woodpeckers and titmice to choose from.   A Screech-owl is at least roosting if not nesting in a new owl box by the drive.  We put the box up just a couple of weeks ago to replace one bees had taken over last summer.  It's probably too late for this guy to nest, but he sure likes sitting in the box. 

He doesn't, however, like me to walk past his door.  That's what my granddaughters call the stink eye.  

I've added to the year's bird list (see sidebar) but I'm not sure it's accurate yet. I'm still tweeting new year birds on Twitter, but I don't always remember to tweet every one.  I'll work on my list tomorrow and then keep adding more as migrants return home or pass through.  I think the list is a little behind last year's at this time.

 Two days ago I was very excited to see an Aplamado Falcon fly over the house. Typically, I didn't have my camera with me.   This is only the second time I've seen the falcon in (or over) the yard.  The first time was about ten years ago when two perched on an electric pole in September.  (We live not too far from Laguna Atascosa NWR where several pairs have nested successfully after a reintroduction program by the Peregrine Fund.)

Spring arrived officially a few days ago.   The moon over the arroyo on the first night of spring was a Supermoon, named because it was nearer the earth than it had been in 18 years.  A moon rising over the water is always breathtaking, but this one was especially ... well, super.  I wish I could have captured a picture of the Great Blue Heron that flew along the river across the moon's light.  

I'll try to blog often to report on our  homecomings and nest-building.   Spring is super everyday in the Rio Grande Valley. 

"for every Bird a Nest"

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The story of the yard in June is always a story of nesting.  I haven't been outside as much in the last two weeks as I was during migration (the heat index is over a hundred by late morning) but I have been looking out the windows, and even from limited views the nesters can be seen going to and fro or overlooking their nests from a high branch.

Some of these busy nesters remind me of a poem by Emily Dickinson in which she wonders why ("wherefore" in her archaic 19th century English) a little wren continues its search for the perfect nest spot, even though there's one in every tree:

For every Bird a Nest --
Wherefore in timid quest
Some little Wren goes seeking round --

Wherefore when boughs are free --
Households in every tree --
Pilgrim be found?   
. . . .

(click the link above for the whole poem)

Watching a pair of Brown-crested Flycatchers, I'm thinking the same thing.  Why continue the exhausting quest in search of the perfect spot (as though on some sort of pilgrimage) when there are perfectly fine nesting spots everywhere and every bird seems to be guaranteed one.  Why all the fuss, just build the nest! get on with it already!!

Really, I'm just kidding.  I love watching birds search all around for the best place to build.  They seem so human.  I can just imagine what they could be thinking.  

I'm fairly certain this is the same pair of flycatchers that so steadfastly built and tended a nest in April and May,  even though they disappointingly (at least for me) seem to have raised Bronzed Cowbirds instead of flycatchers.  Watching from the front deck for a few days last week was entertaining.  Here (photo on right) one looks over the dead cottonwood stump that has already this spring proved a successful home for European Starlings (though, really, who needs more of those to compete with our native cavity-nesters?) and Golden-fronted Woodpeckers.  (The woodpeckers had chiseled out quite a few holes in the two old cottonwoods during the winter--a few in our house, too! Golden-fronted wp's are the contractors who provide housing for several species.)

Here (left) the lively brown flycatchers  flutter excitedly over the birdhouse that's already been used by Brown-crested Flycatchers for many years.  Though not a great photo, it does capture the flurry of activity as they "quest" for that perfect spot. 




Flycatchers are not the only birds on a quest for the perfect nest in our June yard. These Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, if not still searching out nesting places, are certainly searching for something.

In tall Washingtonian Palm trees they look high...

they look low....

Once called Tree Ducks, these guys favor the palms and sometimes even sit on the electrical lines.  Every day we watch them on our dock, preening and sunning themselves.  And early in the morning, before the heat is oppressive, we watch their pilgrimage.  Emily would certainly be wondering the whys and wherefores of their constant search.

The Northern Mockingbird nest in the neighbor's small Anacua tree that a few weeks ago contained a single nestling (see posts from May) was empty by early June without my seeing any newly fledged Mockingbirds. The quick glimpse I had one day of a nestling with dark feathers was too brief to say for sure it was a cowbird. 

[I'll repeat again my disclaimer about bothering nests.  It is something I am super careful about.  I don't want to  move branches to get closer looks or disturb the nesters.] 

Two weeks ago the neighbors discovered a mockingbird going in and out of the Cenizo shrub that is less than ten feet from the Anacua where the first mockingbird nest was. (Cenizo is the native "purple sage" that blooms so beautifully across the river a few days after a summer rain.  Its ashy-green foliage and soft purple blooms  decorate the wild thorny brush along the Arroyo Colorado and are often used in landscaping.)

I think this second nest, fastened like the first to  forking branches about four feet above the ground, may have been built by the mockingbird that sang day and night during the time the other pair were nesting. (See this post for a picture of that nest site.)

It surprises me that the nests are so close together.  The neighborhood gossip in me is starting to speculate.  Did the pair, to make up for the first possibly cowbird-infested nest, start a new one nearby before the cowbird had left home?  Or is this a case of Big Love (one of my favorite television shows) where one male has actually two adjacent homes and two ladies?   Hmmmm.   (I read an interesting article the other day, while throwing out old birding magazines, that cited DNA studies showing supposedly monogamous nesters sometimes having multiple mates.  Some males father broods with more than one female and sometimes eggs in one nest have more than one male parent. )

Whatever the parentage, nestled in the cup of coarse twigs, lined with finer vines and palm tree fibers, were six eggs, four of them light blue blotched with reddish brown.  According to my nest book  (Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds by Paul J. Baicich and Colin Harrison) those are indeed mockingbird eggs.  Hooray!  Unfortunately,  two more eggs were the pale blue-white of the Bronzed Cowbird. (No adult mockers were in sight, so my neighbor removed the two interloper eggs which, being tall,  he could do without touching the nest or the branches.)

A couple of days ago the eggs began hatching. The state bird of Texas, once again, is increasing in number!   And the neighborhood cats are running for cover as the Northern Mockingbirds begin their assault.  My hope is that the intense heat as well as the protective instincts of the birds will keep the cats indoors where domestic cats belong. 

I've been promising a photo of a Hooded Oriole nest and finally have one.  Woven of the finest materials, soft gold fibers from the palm tree, this is a nest I think Emily would call "of twig so fine," an achievement she guesses the wren aspires to.

On a frond of a Washingtonian (non-native) Palm tree, this nest is in the usual kind of tree for a Hooded Oriole but is not typical because it is on the top, not the underneath, side of a dried, not a green, palm frond.  The day following our discovery of the nest, high winds twisted the leaf so that the lovely little woven nest is now out of sight.  I was concerned that the winds would blow down the dried frond, but luckily it's still there, more hidden now from the marauding Bronzed Cowbirds. Woven of fibers pulled from the leaves and bark of the tree, the nest is perfectly camouflaged. 

Hooded Orioles, like Emily's nest-questers, seem always to be in search of a more perfect "household" even though every palm tree looks to my un-oriole eyes to be a perfectly good place. At least twenty palms are in--or within a short distance of--our yard, and at least two pairs of the little orioles continually fly from palm to palm.  I suspect the building of superfluous nests is a reaction to the overabundance of Bronzed Cowbirds.



I'll note just a few more of the active nests:

Another of our common nesters, Great-tailed Grackles, typically build large nests of twigs and weeds, sometimes several in the same tree or nearby trees. The one in the photo above is in our lovely blooming Retama tree.  Others are in an Ash tree and several are in two Live Oaks. The nests are usually pretty high in the trees and are apparently vulnerable to large birds of prey that fly over the yard, judging by both the fact that  Harris's Hawks have already raided a nest of young birds this spring,  and also by the reaction of adult grackles when vultures, hawks, and even gulls fly over the trees.  

The Turkey Vulture being chased by the grackle here was followed closely by a Black Vulture that was likewise harassed by the protective parents.  Male grackles don't seem to help build or sit on nests, but they do keep watch and go into action when necessary!


Curve-billed Thrashers have fledged already from the nest in the native Spanish Dagger Yucca.  You can tell this is a young bird because its spots are smaller, its bill slightly shorter, and its eye pale yellow rather than orange.  Curve-billed Thrashers have always nested in our yard and have had as many as three broods per year.  I've found their nests in several kinds of native trees including Negrito, Esperanza, and even one year in a metal Purple Martin house.  The house was no longer occupied by martins because it had become overgrown by small trees.

                                                                   
The last photo is of one of the Couches' Kingbirds that are nesting in a Live Oak tree. Their dawn song, longer and slower than their other calls and songs is one of my favorite sounds of a spring morning.

Our small Rio Grande Valley yard is filling up with more and more nests.  In such a place where "boughs are free --- / Households in every tree," our spring birds could indeed be described as a " throng -- /  Dancing around the sun." 

Back Yard Birding

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It was another beautiful day on the Arroyo, less windy and about 85 degrees. The bird feeders were attracting all the colorful birds of the neighborhood, as you can see in this photo. That's a Green Jay, an Altamira Oriole, and a Kiskadee along with a drab House Sparrow. (I really don't mind the sparrows, though, especially since our trip to England when I saw them in their "native" habitat. The males I think are especially perky little birds.)

The Kiskadee is not actually eating seed from the feeder in that picture; it's gobbling up granjeno berries from the shrub just beyond the feeder. Of course, Mockingbirds were just out of sight, jealously guarding the berries, but the Kiskadees usually had them outnumbered. Some of the palms also have berries that the berry-warriors are fighting over.

I've seen Kiskadees eat cat food, fish, insects, and berries, but never seed. Altamira Orioles eat seed, citrus, and nectar. Green Jays eat seed, peanuts, berries, meal worms. ( The feeder the birds are on in the photo is one our son brought us more than 13 years ago, just after we moved into our house. He carried it on the airplane because it was too big for the suitcase. Though it holds a lot of seed, we put out only a handful at a time to keep the raccoons from climbing on it at night. )

New 2010 "yard birds" today were a Reddish Egret that flew by over the river and a Brown-headed Cowbird eating seed with the Red-winged Blackbirds. I wish the egret had stopped to "dance" in the shallow water at the edge of the Arroyo, but it didn't. We did have a Tricolored Heron and a Snowy Egret feeding, though--and Night Herons filling the trees that hang down from the banks.

The Baltimore Oriole was back again today, perched in the same ash tree as before, above the grapefruit feeder.

The busiest birds in the yard were a couple of Long-billed Thrashers. They were under the bougainvillea most of the time, scratching in the leaves that fell off in the freeze. One of them kept flying to the very top of an ash tree to sing. I love their song, so loud and cheerful, more musical than the Curve-billed Thrasher's. I kept trying to get a good photo but didn't succeed.

Here's one of a Curve-billed Thrasher on some palm fronds in the back of the pickup. Always curious, they are the first to check out any new brush piles or fallen branches.

These birds are among my favorites, the first "day" birds up and around in the morning and the last ones to go to bed! They keep busy digging little craters in the sandy soil. We usually have two pairs that nest in our yard and they usually raise three broods. The Long-billed Thrashers nest in the yard most summers, too. Occasionally, in the winter, we get the similar (but redder) Brown Thrasher. We were used to Brown Thrashers in Missouri and Oklahoma so I always enjoy seeing them in the winters that they show up.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some reading about hummingbirds in Texas.

I'm not sure how to distinguish among the female and immature Ruby-throated and Black-chinned hummers that are at our feeders these winter days. I think I've read that the RTH's have greener heads, with the BCH's having grayer. I don't know if you can actually use that field mark as distinctive, though. All the ones I'm seeing have green heads, but one is less green. I am also noticing that some of the birds have wing tips that are about even with the tip of the tail and some have slightly longer tails.

Today we had three or four different Ruby-throated/Black-chinned. The one pictured here has tail and wing tips about even.